The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks, and military action. The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him toward his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought. The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a lost cause.

The Player of Games

The Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and strategy. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game...a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death.

Consider Phlebas

The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender. Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it....

Surface Detail: A Culture Novel

Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit. Prepared to risk everything for her freedom, her release, when it comes, is at a price, and to put things right, she will need the help of the Culture....

Matter: Culture, Book 8

In a world renowned even within a galaxy full of wonders, a crime within a war. For one man it means a desperate flight, and a search for the one - maybe two - people who could clear his name. For his brother it means a life lived under constant threat of treachery and murder. And for their sister, even without knowing the full truth, it means returning to a place she'd thought abandoned forever.

The Hydrogen Sonata

The Scavenger species are circling. It is, truly, provably, the End Days for the Gzilt civilization. An ancient people, organized on military principles and yet almost perversely peaceful, the Gzilt helped set up the Culture 10,000 years earlier and were very nearly one of its founding societies, deciding not to join only at the last moment. Now they've made the collective decision to follow the well-trodden path of millions of other civilizations; they are going to Sublime, elevating themselves to a new and almost infinitely more rich and complex existence.

Seveneves: A Novel

A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.

Transition

There is a world that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, between the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse. Such a world requires a firm hand and a guiding light. But does it need the Concern: an all-powerful organization with a malevolent presiding genius, pervasive influence and numberless invisible operatives in possession of extraordinary powers?

The Abyss Beyond Dreams: Chronicle of the Fallers, Book 1

The year is 3326. Nigel Sheldon, one of the founders of the Commonwealth, receives a visit from the Raiel - self-appointed guardians of the Void, the enigmatic construct at the core of the galaxy that threatens the existence of all that lives. The Raiel convince Nigel to participate in a desperate scheme to infiltrate the Void. Once inside, Nigel discovers that humans are not the only life-forms to have been sucked into the Void. The humans trapped there are afflicted by an alien species of biological mimics.

Apex: Nexus, Book 3

The explosive conclusion to Nexus and Crux. Global unrest spreads through the US, China, and beyond. Secrets and lies set off shockwaves of anger, rippling from mind to mind. Riot police battle neutrally linked protestors. Armies are mobilized. Political orders fall. Nexus-driven revolution is in here. Against this backdrop a new breed of post-human children are growing into their powers.

Cibola Burn: The Expanse, Book 4

An empty apartment, a missing family, that's creepy. But this is like finding a military base with no one on it. Fighters and tanks idling on the runway with no drivers. This is bad juju. Something wrong happened here. What you should do is tell everyone to leave. The gates have opened the way to a thousand new worlds and the rush to colonize has begun. Settlers looking for a new life stream out from humanity's home planets. Ilus, the first human colony on this vast new frontier, is being born in blood and fire.

Revelation Space

Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason.

Aurora

A major new novel from one of science fiction's most powerful voices, Aurora tells the incredible story of our first voyage beyond the solar system. Brilliantly imagined and beautifully told, it is the work of a writer at the height of his powers.

Echopraxia

It's the eve of the 22nd century: a world where the dearly departed send postcards back from Heaven and evangelicals make scientific breakthroughs by speaking in tongues; where genetically engineered vampires solve problems intractable to baseline humans. And it's all under surveillance by an alien presence. Daniel Bruks is a field biologist in a world where biology has turned computational.

Slow Bullets

A vast conflict, one that has encompassed hundreds of worlds and solar systems, appears to be finally at an end. A conscripted soldier is beginning to consider her life after the war and the family she has left behind. But for Scur - and for humanity - peace is not to be.

The Quarry

Eighteen-year-old Kit is weird: big, strange, odd, socially disabled, on a spectrum that stretches from "highly gifted" at one end, to "nutter" at the other. At least Kit knows who his father is; he and Guy live together in a decaying country house on the unstable brink of a vast quarry. His mother's identity is another matter. Now, though, his father's dying, and old friends are gathering for one last time.

Leviathan Wakes

James S.A. Corey delivers compelling SF that ranks with the best in the field. In Leviathan Wakes, ice miner Jim Holden is making a haul from the rings of Saturn when he and his crew encounter an abandoned ship, the Scopuli. Uncovering a terrifying secret, Jim bears the weight of impending catastrophe. At the same time, a detective has been hired by well-heeled parents to find a missing girl, and the investigator’s search leads him right to the Scopuli.

Blindsight

Set in 2082, Peter Watts' Blindsight is fast-moving, hard SF that pulls readers into a futuristic world where a mind-bending alien encounter is about to unfold. After the Firefall, all eyes are locked heavenward as a team of specialists aboard the self-piloted spaceship Theseus hurtles outbound to intercept an unknown intelligence.

The Peripheral

Where Flynne and her brother, Burton, live, jobs outside the drug business are rare. Fortunately, Burton has his veteran's benefits, for neural damage he suffered from implants during his time in the USMC's elite Haptic Recon force. Then one night Burton has to go out, but there's a job he's supposed to do - a job Flynne didn't know he had. Beta-testing part of a new game, he tells her.

Caliban's War: The Expanse, Book 2

James S.A. Corey’s best-selling hit Leviathan Wakes earned Hugo and Locus Award nominations. In Caliban’s War, the second chapter of Corey’s Expanse series, a desperate Earth politician works tirelessly to prevent war from reigniting. Meanwhile, upheaval takes root on Venus and Ganymede. And amidst this tumult, James Holden and his crew on the Rocinante are charged with the impossible task of saving humanity from a terrifying fate.

Blue Remembered Earth

Critically acclaimed author Alastair Reynolds holds a well-deserved place “among the leaders of the hard-science space opera renaissance." (Publishers Weekly). In Blue Remembered Earth, Geoffrey Akinya wants nothing more than to study the elephants of the Amboseli basin. But when his space-explorer grandmother dies, secrets come to light and Geoffrey is dispatched to the Moon to protect the family name - and prevent an impending catastrophe.

Proxima: Book 1

The very far future: The galaxy is a drifting wreck of black holes, neutron stars, and chill white dwarfs. The age of star formation is long past. Yet there is life here, feeding off the energies of the stellar remnants, and there is mind, a tremendous galaxy-spanning intelligence each of whose thoughts lasts a hundred thousand years. And this mind cradles memories of a long-gone age when a more compact universe was full of light... The 27th century: Proxima Centauri, an undistinguished red dwarf star, is the nearest star to our sun. How would it be to live on such a world?

On the Steel Breeze: Poseidon's Children, Book 2

Chiku Akinya, great granddaughter of the legendary space explorer Eunice and heir to the family empire, is just one among millions on a long one way journey towards a planet they hope to call their new home. For Chiku, the journey is a personal one, undertaken to ensure that the Akinya family achieves its destiny among the stars. The passengers travel in huge self-contained artificial worlds - holoships - putting their faith in a physics they barely understand.

The Prefect

Tom Dreyfus is a Prefect, a law enforcement officer with the Panoply. His beat is the multifaceted utopian society of the Glitter Band, that vast swirl of space habitats orbiting the planet Yellowstone, the teeming hub of a human interstellar empire spanning many worlds. His current case: investigating a murderous attack against one of the habitats that left 900 people dead, a crime that appalls even a hardened cop like Dreyfus.

Publisher's Summary

The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks, and military action.

The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him toward his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought.

The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a lost cause. But not even its machine could see the horrors in his past.

Ferociously intelligent, both witty and horrific, Use of Weapons is a masterpiece of science fiction.

This is one of the Culture Series books, best introduced by "Player of Games" if the series is not familiar. Use of Weapons has a complex, non-linear structure that can be difficult to follow in audio format. The prolog establishes an event at a particular point in time, call it time t-zero. The story then begins at time t plus 13 and is told in alternating chapters, half of them moving backward toward t-zero, and the other half moving forward from time t plus 13. You arrive at the end of the book when the backward narrative reaches t-zero just as the forward narrative reaches a climax that reveals the real meaning of the events in the prolog. It is cleverly done, but you really do have to pay attention. This one is not for casual listening while you multitask. I would also suggest re-listening to the beginning of the book after you have finished it. Knowing the whole story really changes the meaning of the events at the book's opening. Brilliantly done, and exquisitely handled by Peter Kenny, who does not just read the book, he performs the story.

The Culture series is one of my favorites, and this book is no exception (although Player of Games is still my favorite). Of the Culture books that I've read though, this one's story is the least linear and most disjointed, which, in my opinion is trickier to follow on audio.

The book is set up with an ongoing storyline in the present, with each chapter followed by a (critical) section detailing a portion of the main character's history, each section further and further into the past. It's a great way to tell a story, but I almost need to re-listen to this book now that I have a better picture of the story as a whole. Typically keeping everything straight isn't a problem for me when I just read a book and am able to speed up and slow down a little more naturally (compared to somebody reading to book to me at their pace).

That being said, if you enjoy the Culture series, I really do think that you'll enjoy this book too. Consider reading the book, and not listening to the audiobook, but either way, you'll still be pleased.

After over twenty years, this still holds up as a Sci-Fi masterpiece character study into the dark soul of its protagonist, a mercenary named Cheradenine Zakalwe. At first, the unusual story structure of two asynchronous story lines, alternating between the present and an episodic sequence of thirteen key moments in Zakalwe's past (revealed in reverse chronological order), can be confusing. However, it quickly clarifies, and is an absolutely ingenious way of examining the roots of the character's motives, phobias, and mannerisms in such a way that maximum surprise is extracted at each 'reveal'. Of course, as you've guessed from the profession of Mr. Zakalwe, there is no shortage of action throughout, and a good deal of James Bond 007 (I'm picturing Daniel Craig, not the other blokes). The biggest lost opportunity here was to explore, in the book's many settings and locales, some truly alien cultures, philosophies, and biologies, but sadly we see only a large collection of human civilizations in various stages of technological development. At least Gene Roddenberry slapped some prosthetic facial adornments on his humanoid aliens! Nevertheless, the story succeeds in elevating character over deus ex machina; no easy feat considering the persistent omnipotence of the Culture standing behind the mercenary, but here kept at a welcome arm's length, maintaining a high-stakes identification between the reader and the protagonist.

If your every listened to Banks novel "Consider Phlebas", well, you're in for the same kind of thing. If you want to hear a story told from the perspective of an AI persona -= THIS AINT IT. The story was well written (technique was 1st rate), but it did make me wish they would just tell me why the protagonist was so messed-up (you learn that at the VERY END of the story). Also, the narrator does a good job, as always. I have to say that I rated it a 4 (instead of a 5), because it was not up to the standard of other Culture novels such as "Player of Games" or "Surface Detail" (both 1st rate; buy them now if your haven't listened yet). But, I this novel was still a whole lot better than a lot of other stuff that I rated a 4.

This would my fourth Iain M. Banks Culture novel, and I enjoyed it well enough, though I’m not sure I understand the reverence that many hold for the man’s work. I find his books thought-provoking, but also somewhat self-indulgent and not as deep as everyone seems to think they are. Also, I’m skeptical that the Culture would *work*. Would immensely intelligent machines feel motivated to care for huge populations of human dependents, who do little besides consume resources and amuse themselves? Maybe, but it’s debatable. Personally, I’d probably get bored with maintaining a tame ant colony and dump it in the woods to fend for itself.

That out of the way, I've been told that Use of Weapons is one of Banks’s best books, and I think that's probably true. The protagonist is a sort of 007-ish super agent named Zakalwe, whom the Culture has recruited to run coups and proxy wars in less advanced states that it’s trying to gradually bring into its benevolent sphere. Just as most Americans don’t pay much attention to the various dirty deeds the CIA does in the name of keeping them safe and comfortable, most Culture citizens are too wrapped up in their hobbies/drug use/grotesque parties to notice. However, all the wars are blurring together for Zakalwe and he’s getting a bit unhinged. A culture agent named Diziet Sma and the snarky drone that accompanies her (drones are a feature of all these books) manage to recruit him for another mission.

This novel is really a character study of Zakalwe, who is an expert warrior, but is haunted by events in his past, events which shed light on why he does what he does. And why he wants to stop, but maybe can’t. Towards this end, Banks wrote the book with an unusual structure. There are two narratives, the first moving forward in time, and the second moving backward (on a chapter-by-chapter basis -- think Memento) from the point where the first begins. Gradually, we get more and more hints about who Zakalwe really is, until a twist in the last pages puts what we know in a different light.

And here, I get to the arguable weaknesses of the book. First, readers seem divided on whether the twist is shockingly brilliant or just forced. I lean in the latter direction and would have liked the character motives to have been developed just a bit more. And while the twist raises some worthwhile questions about the moral meaning of one's actions, as well as about the Culture and its choices, it's the only really interesting thing going on in the plot. Everything else that happens until then is either just set-up or repeated expression of the theme that war is ultimately kind of meaningless. As in Player of Games (the Culture book you should start with), I felt that the point could have been made with a shorter novel. Lastly, I got a little bored with Banks’s use of societies that were basically just stand-ins for 20th/21st century Earth countries, with similar attitudes and patterns of life. Couldn't the aliens have been a little more, I dunno... exotic? Does everyone really proceed through the same technology tree?

I'd hardly call this a bad book, though. Banks was an undeniably intelligent and witty writer, and I'd give UOW a solid 3.5 stars. But, it often felt like the world-building, characters, and storytelling played second fiddle to the things the author wanted to get off his chest. As usual, I "read" this one in audio format, which, given the odd structure, requires paying close attention, but it's doable.

This is a Sci-Fi novel about a mercenary. He is employed by an advanced civilization that dislikes violence, but understands the necessity of force to maintain peace. The book contains two story lines. One follows the mercenary’s current life and the other his memories from the past. Begging the question, are humans are one part now and one part past?

I read this book when it was first published and was blown away by the civilization’s technology and the physical enhancements that people added to their bodies to improve quality of life. No surprise, many enhancements are designed for pleasure. Mine would be eating all my favorite foods without getting fat.

I particularly enjoy that machines (think cell phones, androids, toasters, etc) are sentient and enjoy interacting with humans much as I enjoy hanging out with a dog. What is that idiot going to do next? Let’s throw a ball and watch the dog chase it

This is written with a "Memento" chapter construction: two parallel plots with one going forward and one going backward. But this version doesn't do a good job of differentiating between the two plots and even puts them in the same audiobook chapter. (It doesn't help that there are flashbacks and substories in both plot lines.) I had a hard time figuring out the transitions and found the story pretty confusing at times.

As other reviewers have said, this book can be tricky to follow in audio format. It gets hairy because half the chapters count down in reverse to a critical moment past, while the others tick forward through the after effects, and their resolution. On top of that, various characters deliver exposition and experience flashbacks within each kind of chapter. If it were text you could flip back and compare an early flashback to a reverse-time later chapter for instance. Stick with it, the loose threads stitch closer together as the story goes on, and the final chapters shed light on the whole tapestry.

Although a bit of a challenge to listen to (see other reviews addressing the book's structure,) this is a great examination of the contradictions and resulting conflict the Culture generates as it seeks to exert maximum influence with minimal intervention in maturing societies. Especially when imperfect humans are added to the mix.

The unusual structure of the story makes it a very unique and enjoyable listen. Exploring the path back to the beginning as the current story progresses - creates a very interesting simultaneous anticipation of both the past and the future.

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